Facebook Changes Privacy Settings To Make All Users Searchable

Facebook has been through numerous changes in the last few years – some that pleases its users, and a number of which don’t. In their latest move, a change has been made to the privacy settings of its entire user base which will now allow anyone to search for them as one would any other person.

Up to this point, there has been the option to ‘hide’ yourself from search results through an option known as “Who can look up your Timeline by name?”. In a turn of events however it has been discovered that this did not stop people from being discovered in other ways, such as clicking on your name if it appeared in their news feed of via graph search which showed all users within a certain area.

In an interview with ABC News, Bradley Shear who is a specialist lawyer in internet privacy and social media said “Facebook has over a billion users, even though only a small number of users used this privacy option, that can still mean millions of users.” Whilst it is not known. nor will Facebook disclose how many users have opted for this feature, there is certainly going to be a large number of people who are to be affected. Facebook will be informing people of this change to their settings via a message that will appear at the top of their news feed informing them that people they don’t know will be able to see their activity.

Michael Richter, the Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook quoted: “People told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and couldn’t find them in search results. The best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share”

How this is going to affect Facebook in the long run is a time will tell matter, but as Richter suggests, if you don’t want people other than those you know seeing one of your posts then there are still options available to restrict the posts visibility.

Do you use this option? How do you feel about this move in privacy settings? Let us know in the comments section below.

Source: ABC News